Work-life-social media balance

September 11, 2009

Up until now, there has been plenty of talk about work life balance. The old story - how do you manage to strike a balance between the demands of the office and your own non-work life, including family commitments?

Now a new variable has been thrown into the mix: social media. Finding the right balance between work and non-work has been next to impossible but now, it’s even harder with forces like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn eating into our free time. What’s the formula for work-life-social media balance?

There is no doubt that social media is now taking up more of our time. Its growth around the world has been nothing short of spectacular and Australia is no exception. Data from digital world tracking company Comscore shows that more than 70 per cent of internet users in Australia went to a social networking site in June. That’s up 29 per cent from the previous year. According to Comscore, nine million Australians, or about 43 per cent of the population, visited a social networking site in June with most of them heading for Facebook. Add to that a new study, reported here, showing that more companies are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and even Wikipedia to promote their brands, creating a cross-over with the kind of stuff that is taking up people’s attention when they are not at work.

That raises some obvious questions. What does all this do to people’s time and family life? How do they balance that with work?

It’s resulted in what some commentators call Facebook time or Face Time. Face Time = number of friends + number of applications used/time spent per day. There is no doubt social media is consuming people’s time. But is it making things worse?

Some might argue that social media, like Facebook and Twitter, might actually improve work life balance by ensuring people remain in touch. The Twitters and Facebooks of this world, after all, are basically just communication tools so they can help people build connections, stay in touch and shoot the breeze. Still, social media will never replace face-to-face contact.

It’s a trend that catches the attention of commentator Curtis Silver from Wired Magazine. Silver writes: “In these hurried times it’s getting harder and harder to balance work, family and technology. Years ago, it was just work and family. Now, with blogging, social networking alongside gaming and other activities, technophile parents have found that balancing all that out with a competent family life has become something of a chore in itself. I’m sure the iPhone has an app for it though.”

He says that social media can bridge the gap between work and family. Silver writes: “I’ve lamented before about what we’re exposing our children to using social media in such excess, but now this is looking at the opposite direction. When we can’t be there, we can Skype them a goodnight story. We can tweet our wives when we’re on a business trip (yeah, we could call them too but Twitter provides latitude and longitude.) We can use social media as a tool to keep it all connected - business, blogging, social networking and family.”

Not a bad point. But then, a lot of the stuff posted on Twitter and a lot of the status updates on Facebook are just mindless, which is time-consuming. It only works when these sites aren’t used to post the mundane and boring. As one blogger writes, Twitter has become the Paris Hilton of web applications. “It’s famous for no particular reason. Everyone’s talking about it, but no one will admit to actually liking it. Everyone would have forgotten about it a long time ago, except for the fact that the media keeps shoving it down our throats and making it seem much more popular, important, and relevant that it actually is.”

How much of your time does social media take up? Does it hinder your attempts to strike some sort of work-life balance? Does it bridge the gap?

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Recent comments

Pete

September 11, 2009

11:16 AM

LinkedIn has a fast-expiring life-span as it gets filled with nobodies flogging themselves to nobodies. Likewise for Twitter - a ridiculous concept, now suffocating under the weight of its own porn purveyors, and overwhelmingly uninteresting nature. Facebook: people are too dependent on it to let it go, but that will happen too as it becomes more dangerous, especially from a career perspective. The only one hanging around will be the oldest one: email!

LudditeProbably

September 11, 2009

04:51 PM

I know it's probably just me, but I just don't get it. Obsession with Facebook, Twitter etc seems like Tamagotchi for adults.

kristinem17

September 11, 2009

11:03 PM

To strike the right work-life-social media balance I think we have to see social media as an integral part of both work and life and not as a third entity. It serves functions in both our work and personal lives. I agree that it can improve the work-life balance because it aids in communicating more clearly and efficiently.

ProfSurg

September 12, 2009

10:10 AM

Social media is undeniably a double-edged sword. I am currently very busy firing staff who think it's perfectly acceptable to use the likes of Facebook and Twitter on my time. I feel confident however that it will play itself out in a relatively short time. Individuals will acknowledge its true value with the sudden realisation that there are a lot of nobodies out there who need to get a life and start doing things that really matter - eg helping people who, for one reason or another, can't help themselves.

Em

September 12, 2009

12:42 PM

I've refused to join Facebook because of work; providing pastoral care can be intense enough (at work, in the classroom, at home, wherever my phone is turned on); why would I blur the boundaries even more and give people another way to eat into my ability to self-care?

BB

September 13, 2009

07:56 AM

Like anything, it depends how you use them. I only use one - Facebook. And mainly use it to keep in contact with friends that are far away, especially those who are overseas. I often may not go on for a few days at a time. And minimise the amt of applications that I use there - I'm happy to "smile" or "hug" friends, but don't play games on it.

A bit of self-control and remember, you are the adult here, and you control how much time you really want to devote to this!

bman

September 13, 2009

09:17 AM

Tried them all, but grew tired of them very quickly.

Email is my favourite, and hopefully people will return to them in time. Simple effective, and hopefully the pointless emails (forwarded jokes, group emails etc) will stay confined to tools like Twitter in the future?

I keep a facebook account, but don't use any applications. It serves the purpose that old schoolfriends/classmates reunited website used to, and I make sure I have security settings up and little information on there so that it doesn't become an issue when looking for work

BR

September 13, 2009

10:01 AM

I live in China which as a country banned access to Facebook a couple of months ago. Since then everyone has been questionned what to do with their time. Answer is much more family face time, calling up friends and actually doing real socialising with those they are close to. The alternative of course was spend all your time in front of the screen trying to communciate with 1000 "friends" out of which a small number really mean anything long term. The social netwoking sites have created a new kind of hermit. Those who actually communicate with a lot of people but actually never look anyone in the eye and are going a pale yellow sitting at home behind their screen rather than live out in the real world.

ferrisoxide

September 13, 2009

10:46 AM

Great comment from BR.. what a concept - to be confronted with what to do with your time in the absence of Facebook. I have to admit, I've found all these "social" applications have been getting in the way of actually being social. Call me old school, but I'm going even further back that B-man and have taken to writing letters.. you know.. paper, pen, envelope, stamp.. and the people who receive them are reportedly over the moon to get something real.. something physical. You just can't real friendship into a commodity - no matter how hard Facebook, Twitter, etc try.

Jimmy

September 13, 2009

09:01 PM

I agree with a lot of comments here. I've tried them all and they all bored me in short time. I have a couple of hundred Facebook friends and I really struggle to think of a single useful piece of information I've gleamed from it. I don't care that somebodies cactus died or their aunty had an ingrown nail removed. It all seems like so much fluff to fill a page or a testament to the fact that actual real lives aren't that interesting after all. Who'da thought? The only online thing I put any time into is a blog page about what's happening in my life. Plenty of people comment, but I stopped bothering to reading them long ago. I stopped updating the blog a while back (assuming nobody cared) and got heaps of emails from people saying "where'd you go?" so I just started doing it again.

Jedi

September 14, 2009

09:55 AM

Most have got it WRONG! Facebook is an awesome way to save time! I keep in touch with my family (adult children) and friends much more regularly via Facebook posts and pics in between personal face to face times. And I can choose when I do it. It's great. It shows we all care and are interested in each other. I could never manage all this by phone communication. I have made many friends with business associates via the personalisation of Facebook. It's a winner for me!

privacypro

September 16, 2009

09:07 PM

where we're headed with social media and privacy is interesting... we really do have multiple identities.. will be good to explore these issues in front of mozelle thompson from facebook who I think is in melbourne 14 October. read something at www.iappanz.org

Ed

September 21, 2009

08:00 AM

I live overseas and have used facebook in the past to share photos and keep in touch with family and friends, but then I started to find it annoying, why would I want to get an email that someone I met once is having a fun day with his WAP enabled mobile?? The problem I have now, is that people I actualy like are inviting me to be friends and because I no longer like facebook I don't accept - I am sure they think I am rude, but really I am not,I must cancel my account...ah the old days of email. I work for a multi national company and their solution to the time wasting created by these sites is just to block access to the URL - somewhat draconian, maybe, but I also hold shares in the company so I am happy.

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Leon Gettler is a contributor to The Age, specialising on management issues. His interests include business ethics, corporate governance and the intricacies of the US Sarbanes-Oxley ruling. He is the author of two books, including Organisations Behaving Badly: A Greek tragedy of corporate pathology, which focuses on the forces that lead smart executives to make dumb decisions.